


Weakest Link

by engagemythrusters



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Game Station Aftereffects, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 11:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20407351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engagemythrusters/pseuds/engagemythrusters
Summary: Ianto Jones doesn't know half the things Captain Jack Harkness knows, and most of that is because Jack refuses to share any of it.





	Weakest Link

Ianto's hand dangles off the sofa, his fingers twisting absentmindedly into the carpet. It had been a long day, despite the lack of Rift activity. He had to drag two Weevils down to the cells by himself as Jack and Gwen wrangled a Hoix. Then the Archives flew apart when Jack accidentally activated a small tornado-maker while Ianto was trying to label it. He was pretty sure there is a substantial bruise on his hip where he crashed into the table. Needless to say, he is currently quite content to just be sitting here, on his sofa, doing nothing.

A knock comes from the front door of his flat. He doesn't bother giving it much thought, much less getting up and opening it. He knows it's Jack. Who else comes to his flat? No one. Literally nobody else stops by. Tosh used to, when they had drinks and stuff late at night after work, but...

"It's starting to snow!" Jack announces. 

"Is it?" Ianto asks as he hears the door slam shut. 

A heavy thudding follows. Jack has probably shucked his boots carelessly against the wall, where they probably landed wherever and will eventually start dripping all over Ianto's nicely clean floors. Ianto will have to fix that later.

"The biggest, fluffiest flakes that you ever will see!" Jack says, his voice closer to the sitting room. "Though, I have been to a planet where--"

The abrupt cut-off is unexpected. Ianto was planning to listen to a twenty-minute tale that would somehow involve copious amounts of sex and Jack saving the day at least three ways. Ianto picks his head up off a pillow and turns to peer up at Jack. 

Jack's whole body is tense. Very tense. Like someone just took a wind-up key to his back and turned it and turned it and turned it, until every muscle was taut and ready to spring. His jaw is set firm, his lips are a thin line, his eyes are staring straight ahead with a strange amount of intensity. Ianto follows their gaze to his telly and then back again.

"Jack?"

Jack opens his mouth to respond, but it quickly snaps back shut with an audible _clack_. Ianto frowns and sits up.

"Are you alright?" he asks apprehensively.

Ianto watches as Jack visibly wrenches his eyes away from the television to glance down at Ianto.

"Yeah."

Ianto knows a lie when he hears one, but is far more interested in watching Jack force his body to relax than he is in telling Jack off. 

"Why are you watching The Weakest Link?" The feigned casualness mystifies Ianto.

"I dunno," he admits.

Honestly, he had just flopped down and turned on his telly. The reruns had just been on, and he hadn't been bothered to change them. It wasn't as if he'd actually been watching it, anyway. It had just been some background noise to zone out to.

"Right."

Jack leans down over the back of the sofa, his hair brushing Ianto's face as he snatches up the remote and turns the telly off. He drops the remote back on the sofa like it's on fire. Ianto frowns harder.

"What was that for?"

"I brought home food," Jack says.

He lifts the bag up to prove it. 

"I see that," Ianto says. "But you've never been opposed to watching a bit of telly while we eat before."

"Maybe I just wanted a change of pace," Jack says.

"I don't see how--" Ianto checks the bags Jack holds "--_curry_ warrants that."

"Is it wrong of me to want your undivided attention?" 

Ianto snorts. "Your ego demands nothing less."

Jack puts on a mock-hurt front, which Ianto ignores.

"Fine," Ianto capitulates. "I'll get out my finest china and we shall dine upon this curry like a bunch of uptight twats, if that's what you want."

"Thank you."

Ianto rolls his eyes. 

Their absurd meal is followed by a good... _dessert_. That's all Ianto has to say on the matter. At least it's enough to distract him from whatever that issue with the telly was.

"I'm cold," Ianto says when they settle down into bed. "My feet are freezing."

"How are you cold? We just--" Jack cuts off, shaking his head. "I'll never understand how you're always cold. _Ah!_ Get those off my calves!"

Ianto snickers and rolls over, burying his face into Jacks' shoulder. He eventually drifts off that way, cocooned in Jack's warmth.

It feels like barely seconds have passed when he's being torn from his lovely heat source. Ianto, muzzy and tired, emits a groan at the sudden, shocking lack of warmth, but when it mingles with a sharp sob, he snaps awake. His eyes search frantically about the dark room, landing on the huddled mass on the bed to his right.

Jack's body, merely a silhouette illuminated by the subtle glow from the street lights outside, is hunched over on itself. The outlines of his arms rest over his tangled mess of hair, and his entire body is shaking. Ianto instantly recognizes this, from all those nights after Jack returned from his mysterious disappearance, or that first week after the Daleks and the Doctor. 

"Hey," he says, as lightly as possible.

He sits up slowly, bringing a hand up Jack's spine as he goes, letting it come to rest on the nape of Jack's neck. His other hand gently works itself between one of Jack's own hands and his hair. He brings it to his chest, holding it fast, as the thumb on Jack's neck rubs soft circles. This is the most Jack will ever allow Ianto to do for him. Jack always says anything else is too much for him to process. So, Ianto does this every time, without fail, and tries to find other ways to help.

At the moment, Ianto mentally lists through everything that could cause this. The last time Jack died was three days ago. Ianto weighs the effects bleeding out via gunshot wound would have on Jack's mental state; not this much, he settles on, because bleeding out is one of the more common deaths Jack has. 

By the time he comes to wonder if this is being caused by something from Jack's past, he registers that Jack's trembling has dwindled down to almost nothing. He releases Jack's hand from his own, but keeps his other on Jack, moving from Jack's neck to his farther shoulder. Jack brings his now-free hand to his face and exhales deeply.

"Are you alright?" Ianto asks. 

The answer is always "no," even when it's disguised as a "yes."

Ianto rests his cheek on Jack's closer shoulder, still calculating to himself what brought this on. Jack's head drops onto Ianto's.

They sit like that for a while, finding solace in each other's company, both of them silently wrestling Jack's demons.

Jack eventually lets out a sigh and sits up. Ianto picks his head off Jack's shoulder and studies him carefully. Ianto can barely see it in the darkness that surrounds them, but Jack has a determined look on his face, hard and set. Whatever it was hasn't passed, not necessarily, but Jack has determined he can now face it. Ianto drops back onto the bed. He pats the spot beside him.

"You're going to get cold," he says.

"Just because _you're_ always cold..." Jack huffs.

But he nestles back down beside Ianto anyway, scooting as close to Ianto as humanly possible. Ianto lets him snuggle back up around Ianto. Jack likes to think he's being the big spoon, but Ianto knows that, in reality, Jack is internally the little spoon, drawing all comfort from Ianto as he holds him close. It's the whole "human shield" complex Jack has, but Ianto does not have the strength to tackle that now, not on this night. 

Ianto prepares for that to be it, for them to go back to bed and never speak of this again, but that is apparently not what Jack needs tonight. 

In a voice that's scarcely even there, Jack asks: "Can I tell you about someone named Rose?"

Ianto tugs away from Jack's embrace, just a little, to observe Jack. He is looking down at Ianto with a surprising level of tenderness, and Ianto is momentarily caught off guard.

"Alright," he says when he can find his speech again.

"You met her once, with the Daleks," Jack says. "Maybe even twice, back when you were in... well."

Jack shifts even closer to Ianto, somehow.

"Anyway, you would have liked her. She was the most wonderful person."

Ianto begins to wonder if this is another one of Jack's _story_ stories, but then Jack gazes deeply into Ianto's eyes. Christ, it's almost _loving,_ that look.

"You remind me of her," Jack whispers softly.

Before Ianto can even begin to process any of that, Jack leans forward and presses a kiss to Ianto's forehead, one of his hands cupping around Ianto's head, entangling itself in his hair. It stays there when Jack pulls his lips away and begins to recount his tale.

"So, one day, back when I was young and dumb, I had this ambulance--"

"Okay, I already have so many questions."

"Oh, hush. Anyway, young, dumb, had an ambulance. And then I met the two strangest people in my life. One was called the Doctor, and the other was Rose Tyler..."

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, everything's fine. Not crying about the goddamned TragedyTM that is Captain Jack Harkness. God, I can't even think about Satellite Five without sobbing.  
Anyways, here's this. Thanks for reading and have a good day! That is, if you can have one after thinking about Jack being all alone on the Game Station after dying and losing the most important people in his life.


End file.
